Category: Access to Care

Since Obamacare’s rollout in the fall of 2013, 16 co-ops that launched with money from the federal government have collapsed.

The co-ops, or consumer operated and oriented plans, were started under the Affordable Care Act as a way to boost competition among insurers and expand the number of health insurance companies available to consumers living in rural areas.

Thomas Miller, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who is an expert in health policy, said each of the seven remaining co-ops have “warning indicators” leading up to when, and if, they fail.

Thousands of Illinoisans heeded federal law and bought health insurance last year via the state’s Obamacare exchange. They signed up with Land of Lincoln Health, a state-approved insurer. They paid their premiums and deductibles. Many counted on that coverage to manage chronic illnesses or other long-term treatment.

Now, a kick in the teeth: Land of Lincoln has collapsed. Its customers must scramble for new coverage in an upcoming “special enrollment” period. They will have 60 days to find another plan on the Illinois exchange to cover the last three months of the year.

Humana will exit eight of the 19 individual health insurance markets where it has sold Obamacare plans this year, the insurer announced Thursday.

The company is still struggling to make a profit on the exchanges, according to its second quarter earnings guidance released Thursday. The company expects to offer individual plans in 156 counties across 11 states compared to the 1,351 counties in 19 states it has offered plans in the year, according to a release.

The Illinois Insurance Department moved Tuesday to shut down Land of Lincoln because of its unstable financial health, leaving about 49,000 policyholders in a lurch. They will lose coverage in the coming months, but neither regulators nor the company have said exactly when.

Policyholders will be able to buy insurance from a different carrier to cover them for the rest of 2016, according to the state Insurance Department. But switching plans is going to cost them.

The co-pays and deductibles enrollees have been paying since January will not transfer to new plans. A new plan will reset deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums paid by consumers.

Illinois moved Tuesday to take control of Land of Lincoln Health to begin an orderly shutdown of the insurance company, meaning about 49,000 people will lose their health coverage in the coming months.

The state said it will allow policyholders to buy coverage from a different insurer before their Land of Lincoln plans are terminated, but it’s unclear when the policies will lapse.

“It’s a bad day for the marketplace in Illinois and our consumers,” said Jason Montrie, president and interim CEO of Chicago-based Land of Lincoln. “This is the end.”

The number of insurers carrying out one of the Affordable Care Act’s most idealistic goals continues to plummet, with just seven nonprofit member-run health plans set to take part in the law’s fourth enrollment season this fall.

That’s down from 23 such plans — co-ops, as they are commonly known — that started in 2014. Eleven are still in business, but four in Oregon, Ohio, Connecticut and Illinois will fold soon because of financial insolvency. Just Tuesday, the Land of Lincoln Mutual Health Insurance Co. was ordered to close by Illinois regulators.

Oregon’s nonprofit ObamaCare health insurance co-op is winding down operations due to financial problems, the second such announcement this week for the troubled co-op program.

The announcement is just the latest in a long string of failures of ObamaCare’s co-ops, non-profit health insurers set up to increase competition with established insurers. Before this week, just 10 of the original 23 co-ops remained functioning, and Republicans have seized on the problems.

Oregon’s Department of Consumer and Business Services announced Friday that it is taking over the insurer, known as Oregon’s Health CO-OP, and will liquidate the company.

With insurers struggling to make money and access to plans severely limited, top South Carolina health officials warn the Obamacare health insurance marketplace is on the verge of collapse.

Obamacare was supposed to create a competitive platform for customers to shop for coverage. But in most South Carolina counties, HealthCare.gov more closely resembles a monopoly dominated by the largest private health insurance company in the state — BlueCross BlueShield.

Next year, access to Obamacare in South Carolina will likely become even more limited. United Healthcare, which sells Affordable Care Act plans in five counties and in several other states, has announced it will leave most markets in 2017. The company estimates it lost $475 million on Obamacare customers across the country last year.

Connecticut’s financially “unstable” Obamacare health-insurance co-op was placed under state supervision on Tuesday, as regulators said 40,000 people covered by the company will ultimately have to find new plans for the coming year.

HealthyCT is the 14th of 23 original Obamacare co-ops to fail since they began selling health plans on government-run Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges. Several of the other remaining co-ops, at least, are believed to be on shaky financial ground.

Until last week, the nonprofit HealthyCT had “adequate capital and sustainable liquidity” — but that fell apart Thursday with a federal requirement that hit HealthyCT with a $13.4 million bill, according to the Connecticut Insurance Department.

This refrain may sound familiar: If you qualify for Medicaid but you like your “Obamacare” plan, you can keep it … unless you can’t.

That’s the confusing and mixed message residents are getting from the state and insurance companies now that Louisiana has become the 31st state to expand Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

About 375,000 people — mostly the working poor — are expected to get free health insurance coverage through the expanded program, which is mostly subsidized by the federal government.

Tens of thousands of those Louisiana residents — the total is not known — already have health insurance policies through what is called the federal marketplace, an Obamacare program that pays most of their insurance premiums.

The state says people who bought individual policies through the federal marketplace but now qualify for Medicaid under the state expansion can keep their Obamacare plans if they prefer them over Medicaid. They just have to keep paying their share of the premiums.